For many years, the sides and roofs of vehicles have been employed to retain display arrangements for advertising and identification purposes. Panel signs are commonly fixed to the sides of cars, trucks, and buses to provide a single viewing surface, such as for identifying and advertising the business conducted by the owner or for advertising other products and services. Further display arrangements take the form of dual-sided signs that are retained relative to the roof of a vehicle, such as a taxicab or a private vehicle. Advantageously, such rooftop signs provide first and second viewing surfaces whereby advertising or identifying information can be perceived from both sides of the vehicle and whereby first and second different advertising messages can potentially be displayed. The prior art has also disclosed triangular signs for being retained atop a vehicle whereby three display surfaces are viewable over a wide range of viewing angles.
Ultimately, added display surfaces yield added display space. Greater display space translates into greater attention for the advertising message and, consequently, greater advertising benefits and advertising revenue. Still further, the ability to display multiple messages on a single display device enables the display of multiple complementary messages or multiple distinct messages. Therefore, advertisers and advertising providers have continually sought to provide increased display area, to draw increased attention to the displayed message, and, where desirable, to enable the display of multiple messages in relation to a single advertising display.
While advantageous for their added number of display surfaces and the resultantly increased surface area of display, even the multi-sided display devices of the prior art suffer from a number of drawbacks. For example, each observer may see only one of the multiple display surfaces and, therefore, only one of the displayed messages. The remaining display surfaces are often incapable of being viewed from a single vantage point. With this, the advertising messages on the unseen display surfaces are ineffective relative to the stationary observer. Certain messages are effectively lost, and messages on the multiple surfaces cannot effectively be used to relay complementary advertising messages. Furthermore, with their presence having become utterly common in everyday life, consumers have come to pay little attention to the stagnant display devices of the prior art. Due to the mundane nature of the advertising displays, consumers allow vehicles retaining the same to pass without giving so much as a glance to the advertising messages retained thereon.
Thus, it would be desirable to provide a promotional display device for being retained relative to a vehicle that overcomes these and further problems and deficiencies encountered with previously devised vehicle mounted signage. It would be advantageous to provide such a display device that provides multiple display surfaces to enable the display of plural advertising messages, whether those messages be independent or related. It would be particularly desirable to provide a promotional display device that enables an observer to view each of the plurality of advertising messages from a single viewpoint. Even further, it would be desirable to provide a promotional display device that compels the attention of observers through its unique configuration and operation thereby to ensure that retained messages receive the attention that the advertiser so richly desires.